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The Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian
Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Eugene Juwah has parleyed with the Lagos
State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, over the identified problems with right
of way and multiple taxes and levies which leads to poor quality of service
(QoS), reports DigitalSENSE
Business News.
Speaking during a courtesy visit to
Gov. Fashola at Alausa-Ikeja, the EVC noted that there are various levels of
government interventions which have become impediments to realizing good
quality of telecom services in Nigeria.
Dr. Juwah accompanied by two
commissioners and other officials of the Commission, informed the governor that
the nation has about 119 Million active subscribers, while teledensity reached
more than 85 per cent from some 0.4 per cent.
This, he also said has contributed to
more than 7.8 per cent to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and that Lagos
State controls more than 15 per cent of the mobile phone subscribers in
Nigeria, hence its position is seen as critical in matters that affect
telecommunications services.
He reiterated that quality of
services in Lagos, and indeed, other parts of the country, is not desirable,
there are challenges contributing to this with the Right of Way issues being
the most critical.
“We are already aware that you are
involved with other governors in the National Economic Council in discussing
and finding solutions to the issue of RoW in the country as currently being
championed by Vice President Namadi Sambo,” he said, urging Fashola to continue
to support these patriotic efforts so that the objectives of providing easy
passage for telecommunications infrastructure, to accelerate and encourage more
investments in the country, would be realized.
Juwah used the visit to acquaint Governor
Fashola with the level of the nation’s infrastructure deficit with reference to
the paucity of masts and towers in Nigeria with less than 25,000 base stations
compared with a country like UK with up
to 65,000 base stations adding that a 2009 survey by the NCC showed that out of
a total of 6,196 masts and towers in Lagos, 48 per cent belonged to corporate
bodies and individuals, 25 per cent belonged to telecom operators, 18 per cent to
banks, 8 per cent to unidentified owners and 2 per cent to the broadcast
industry.
He said even if the number of base stations owned by operators, which
was 2, 975 then, had increased by 100 per cent, it would still have fallen
short of what is needed to serve Lagos subscribers alone,” he said.
“Your Excellency, this situation is
made worse by multiple taxations and regulations that await the service
providers at the various levels of government, including state governments,
local governments, and even some communities. In most cases, unfortunately,
telecom masts and towers easily become specific targets for multiple taxes and
regulations even where there are other masts and towers in existence, or even
when appropriate taxes have been imposed at the Federal Level.
Given the scenario of infrastructure
deficit that we have painted above, the situation on ground becomes very
discouraging as some of the service providers depend on very few base stations
to serve the populace. “We have noticed
that some of these regulations exist in Lagos and it is our hope that this
progressive administration will be disposed to taking a serious look at some of
them with a view to eliminating double and inequitable taxation. This will in
turn engender an enabling business environment that would encourage more
investments and accelerate deployment of more telecom infrastructure and
facilities,” he said.
Dr. Juwah also brought the attention
of the Governor to vandalization of telecommunications infrastructure which has
taken its toll on the quality and availability of services, and the need to
support the Commission in pursuit of the critical infrastructure bill at the
National Assembly as Lagos is mostly affected in any of these vandalization
incidents.
Further, Juwah solicited the Governor’s
collaboration in the implementation of the Emergency Communications Centres,
ECC, across the country as the pilots have already been commissioned at Awka
and Minna, so that Lagos will be a model city for this national assignment
which the Commission has elected to bring to the nation.
Responding,
Gov. Fashola applauded Dr. Juwah “for the thoughtfulness and initiative of the
broadband.” Pointing out that NCC really needs the support of the governors to
make things happen.
“You will
regulate the allocation of frequencies, you will regulate bandwidths and so
many other things but you cannot regulate where the towers and mast are
positioned, you need me as indeed you need all of my colleagues to determine
where the right of way will be and under what conditions and this was the point
that we took,” he said
He
regretted that a lot of time have been lost in the legal process in the matter
of approvals for the operators for erection of masts because of the
disagreement with his government which refused to grant approvals for new
installations and government’s insistence on
collocation, payment of levies, and quality of installations. He
promised to bring the dispute out of the courts for amicable settlement.
He disagreed with the use of the term multiple taxation as a proper way
to describe levies being imposed on operators for services rendered to them at
state levels as the operators’ licenses for operation does not foreclose
payment for the land and other associated fees.
“It is an incidence of the nature of
business that they have entered, the issues we should be talking about is how
to mitigate cost and that is what I’ve told my colleagues that we cannot make
revenue from the cost of right of way or from the cost of setting up masts and
towers," he said.
“Lagos
State does not seek to do so, we see the revenue in the business growth that
ICT and stronger broadband and fiber optic capacity give to citizens, that’s
where I see money. The revenue that comes from businesses, more people
employed, paying more income tax is much more than what any government could
ever collect,” he said.
He,
however, chided the operators for not applying appreciable level of corporate
governance as is evident in the types of contractors that they use, resulting
in damages to infrastructure like roads already built by the government.
“There
must be a sense of patriotism from the contractors and I choose my words very
carefully, by the contractors being used by the telecom operators in laying
their infrastructure, a sense of ownership and duty to protect the existing
public asset. They’re not enough, so the few that we have, we must protect, it
can’t be I want to do business, I want to give people telephone, I don’t care
if we get lost, so this really is the heart of the matter,” he said, while
promising to “get the parties out of court, so that we can set a regulatory
regime in which everybody can work together,” he said.
Correspondent/DigitalSENSE Business News
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